[jacketree]

So why is the OL so much better at home? Opponents? No crowd noise? Better hotel rooms?

[jacketree]

So why is the OL so much better at home? Opponents? No crowd noise? Better hotel rooms?

[SamAtoms1980]

WSU's defense played at an insane level at home this season.  They get credit for MAKING our OL look like $#%&.

That said, Shaw made a lot of soft decisions which contributed to our putzing away this game.

[SamAtoms1980]

WSU's defense played at an insane level at home this season.  They get credit for MAKING our OL look like $#%&.

That said, Shaw made a lot of soft decisions which contributed to our putzing away this game.

[stupac2]

So why is the OL so much better at home? Opponents? No crowd noise? Better hotel rooms?

My hypothesis is crowd noise. I think that, because we've shuffled around so much, they guys aren't as good at communicating as they normally are, and being able to do that easily allows their athleticism to shine. Like, by ypg Oregon is a significantly better run defense than WSU (though WSU is still very good), but against Oregon (despite missing Love for a half) we got 6.0 ypc, against WSU we got 3.4 (and without Love's long run it would be <2.0). We also miserably underperformed last week, as everyone knows.

I was really hoping we could get out to a lead early to take the crowd out of it, but we never did. I think that's a big problem for this line.

(On the other hand, as WiM has pointed out, this offense is very young, it's possible that this gets fixed with more time with settled starters working together.)

[stupac2]

So why is the OL so much better at home? Opponents? No crowd noise? Better hotel rooms?

My hypothesis is crowd noise. I think that, because we've shuffled around so much, they guys aren't as good at communicating as they normally are, and being able to do that easily allows their athleticism to shine. Like, by ypg Oregon is a significantly better run defense than WSU (though WSU is still very good), but against Oregon (despite missing Love for a half) we got 6.0 ypc, against WSU we got 3.4 (and without Love's long run it would be <2.0). We also miserably underperformed last week, as everyone knows.

I was really hoping we could get out to a lead early to take the crowd out of it, but we never did. I think that's a big problem for this line.

(On the other hand, as WiM has pointed out, this offense is very young, it's possible that this gets fixed with more time with settled starters working together.)

[Goose]

WSU's defense played at an insane level at home this season.  They get credit for MAKING our OL look like $#%&.

That said, Shaw made a lot of soft decisions which contributed to our putzing away this game.

I can't totally agree. WSU certainly played well on defense. However, the coaches knew what we were going to see. Our OL was probably well coached on what to expect. However, they played very poorly. The played very poorly at home last year as well (some personnel differences, true). The OL looked confused and frequently got physically beat, especially in the second half. On many plays, one or two OL blocked thin air or ran into each other. That isn't WSU, that's us.
We actually got beat much worse than the final score indicated. The defense held WSU to 24 points, and scored 6 of their own. That is all one can ask  of them.

[Goose]

WSU's defense played at an insane level at home this season.  They get credit for MAKING our OL look like $#%&.

That said, Shaw made a lot of soft decisions which contributed to our putzing away this game.

I can't totally agree. WSU certainly played well on defense. However, the coaches knew what we were going to see. Our OL was probably well coached on what to expect. However, they played very poorly. The played very poorly at home last year as well (some personnel differences, true). The OL looked confused and frequently got physically beat, especially in the second half. On many plays, one or two OL blocked thin air or ran into each other. That isn't WSU, that's us.
We actually got beat much worse than the final score indicated. The defense held WSU to 24 points, and scored 6 of their own. That is all one can ask  of them.